"I've no idea who you are. GIVE THIS MAN A WHITELIST."

[Guest]

While I appreciate the notion that new players should be welcomed with open arms here, we can't just hand out positions of responsibility like candy and expect people to do well with them.

I'm referring to the majority of the head whitelist apps with new people here.

We need to get to know these people a bit before deciding whether or not people should have these whitelists.

[Jakers457]

That is pretty much the whole point of the whitelist system. People vouch for players they've actually played with and such, but I feel with the no whitelist movement people who've played a day are given whitelists with the snap of their fingers.

[Frances]

I've always felt like whitelists are just that... whitelists. If people abuse them, it should be easy to take them away.

I'd rather have them be "easy to gain, easy to lose", than the opposite. Because then you have whitelists that no newbies can get, and that terrible (but regular) players can sit on for a long-ass time without getting stripped/jobbanned.

Imo, as long as you can demonstrate you're not an idiot (through a comprehensive and well-worded app), you're deserving of a whitelist.

[Guest]

Honestly, I've concluded that how long someone's been playing on the server does little to guarantee their quality of a Head of Staff. With that in mind, why bar good new players from the positions?

[Skull132]

Honestly, I've concluded that how long someone's been playing on the server does little to guarantee their quality of a Head of Staff. With that in mind, why bar good new players from the positions?

 

I've seen similar things when selecting admin staff.

Although, there is a clear distinction to be made between:

"I've got no idea who you are," and "You haven't been around in these parts for long."

One implies a random, "Eh, sure," while the other implies that you, at the very least, see something positive and neat in the player (or you actually know them from elsewhere, etcetera).

[mrimatool]

The idea of whitelists are that players are vouched for like mentioned in Jakers post. You're supposed to get an idea of the player's ideas and RP before vouching, but sometimes a very well done app will get you through.

The same happened when Sue came to the server, she posted an app before even playing because she couldn't stand the thought of not being Ana. Anyway just my thoughts.

[Guest]

Yes, that disctinction has to be made. However, during the time I was making my head app, complaint was made that the whitelists were a popularity contest, as in, you needed to know a lot of people before getting one. Likewise, the fact that players still support their friend's apps for friendship's sake also makes this system unreliable, as even the fact someone was able to make friends means little due to diversity of opinions we have here.

In my opinion, a decent amount of time to detect problematic behavior and the quality of the App should be enough to qualify a player for a head whitelist. Otherwise, it just sends the message: "Come back when you become notable."

[Guest]

You mean new people have to come in and show people they're trustworthy and reasonably responsible?

You're right, that's definitely too tall of an order to ask of people.

[Guest]

Well, if you put it that way, it's not. But yes, all I'm asking that it doesn't devolve back into the +5 rule. I trust staff can excercise good judgment when granting and revoking whitelists.

[Guest]

You mean new people have to come in and show people they're trustworthy and reasonably responsible?

You're right, that's definitely too tall of an order to ask of people.

 

How long do you think people should have to play before being able to apply?

[Guest]

You mean new people have to come in and show people they're trustworthy and reasonably responsible?

You're right, that's definitely too tall of an order to ask of people.

 

How long do you think people should have to play before being able to apply?

 

This isn't about the applicants. This is about people making worthless endorsements and negligent judgement calls.

[Guest]

The two are obviosly related.

[Jakers457]

You mean new people have to come in and show people they're trustworthy and reasonably responsible?

You're right, that's definitely too tall of an order to ask of people.

 

How long do you think people should have to play before being able to apply?

 

Long enough to have people vouch for them. It's a good system seeing as applications aren't everyone's strong points.

[Baka]

I do not handle whitelist, but this is my take.

It really all depends on how you present yourself. You have to make a good selling point.

Now, that doesn't mean someone fresh from the boat just joining our community going, "Hi, I'm from _______, so I know how to do this." should be given an all-clear. I've seen that used so many times in application and to be quite honest it's a superfluous reasoning as to why they should be a head of staff. I have seen terrible head of staff players and aliens on servers which markets itself as heavy roleplay and terrific staff players and aliens on servers which are mid-low roleplay.

Where you're from should not matter, and it really tells nothing as to why you should be head of staff other than "I had played it before". Anyone can play head of staff and still not know how to play it.

But.

Showing comprehension of what a job does that you're aiming for or how to play as an alien in accordance to what we have set as a line, does show that you have merit and can be given, in good faith, a whitelist. Misuse of your whitelist can and will be revoked, depending on the severity of what has happened and/or the history of incidents. After all, a whitelist is a privilege to play as a head of staff or an alien. And it can be given, it can taken as well.

That's how the system is set up. It's not a perfect system, but (in my opinion) it works.

[Dzheymz]

I do not handle whitelist, but this is my take.

It really all depends on how you present yourself. You have to make a good selling point.

Now, that doesn't mean someone fresh from the boat just joining our community going, "Hi, I'm from _______, so I know how to do this." should be given an all-clear. I've seen that used so many times in application and to be quite honest it's a superfluous reasoning as to why they should be a head of staff. I have seen terrible head of staff players and aliens on servers which markets itself as heavy roleplay and terrific staff players and aliens on servers which are mid-low roleplay.

Where you're from should not matter, and it really tells nothing as to why you should be head of staff other than "I had played it before". Anyone can play head of staff and still not know how to play it.

But.

Showing comprehension of what a job does that you're aiming for or how to play as an alien in accordance to what we have set as a line, does show that you have merit and can be given, in good faith, a whitelist. Misuse of your whitelist can and will be revoked, depending on the severity of what has happened and/or the history of incidents. After all, a whitelist is a privilege to play as a head of staff or an alien. And it can be given, it can taken as well.

That's how the system is set up. It's not a perfect system, but (in my opinion) it works.

 

I have to disagree. I have seen more heads than I care to count that do not know how to do their job and/or are horrible roleplayers without even the capacity to spell properly in IC chat, and the number of them has never decreased. If anything, it is increasing at an alarming rate.

[VoltageHero]

I noticed this was briefly touched on, but I want to make another note of it.

We did use to have whitelists, where the general "yes/no" verdict came from a player's RP skill on the server. For a good while, if somebody hadn't been playing for more than a few weeks, they'd be told "get to know people more, and allow people see your RP, before trying to make a whitelist", due to a lot of new players, even then, making whitelists rather quickly.

This was later changed to what we have now because, if I'm recalling correctly, there was a lot of favoritism going on. Players would +1 an app of somebody they'd played with before, not because of how their app was typed, or presented, but because they were either good friends with them OOCly, ICly, or both. There were newer players, who would work hard to get an app in, and would get denied, because nobody knew who they were. Some people who were generally just crap at RP, were getting whitelists, because people in the server liked them, OOCly.

It made the server look like it was playing favorites quite a lot, and in the end, people didn't like it like that.

So, here's the million dollar question. What would prevent the exact same actions from happening again, if we reverted to "you must be at least somewhat well known to get a whitelist" type of whitelists?

[jackfractal]

I don't have a good plan for how to actually make this work, but wouldn't a kind of apprenticeship program work best for this kind of thing? Like, a command intern or something. An ensign maybe?

You could join or get shifted to the intern role, and you'd get a command headset. Then you'd act as a second and shadow to someone in a command role. If that person dies or goes SSD, you become the head for that round.

At the end of the shift (or when the command character ghosts) their player can rank you up or down based on your performance. Get enough up votes, not an onerous amount, like maybe five, and you get command white-list for that department. I think this would give a better result in terms of accurately gauging how well suited people are for this department, while also keeping the command slots filled more often.

I wouldn't mind seeing this kind of thing done for the Security, Engineer, and Surgeon roles as well. Get rid of the minimum age limits and make people actually play as cadets and interns to learn the ropes. It's always a little scary when a Chief Engineer doesn't know how to turn off the particle accelerator, or how to filter a plasma leak.

Could this system be abused? Yyyeah probably, but it might be interesting to try.

[Frances]

That sounds complicated. I personally prefer whitelists be handed by 1-2 trusted people, through a simple one-time application process. It doesn't keep all the troublemakers out, but we don't really have any guarantee a more complex system would either.

[Guest]

Which, is how it works.

Endorsements, however, while they do not outright decide whether a person gets a whitelist, do directly influence the decision in which whitelists are given or held for later.

And that can be a game-changer for whether someone gets a whitelist or not.

[Frances]

Endorsements are encouraged, though they're not mandatory. When they were, it led to silly situations such as people being denied whitelists simply because nobody knew them - regardless of how good their apps were.

As long as you've played a week or two on the server and nobody can prove you can't behave yourself, you'd be good for a shot at a whitelist, imo. Besides, I've seen a few idiots in command and I can nearly 100% assure you they wouldn't have any trouble getting recommendations anyways.

[Guest]

Possibly, yes. As Baka and a few others said, whitelists are something that one can giveth and then taketh away just as easily.

Either way, I just want people to be wise about their endorsements and try to get to know candidates first.

[Hartburry]

Nope nope nope. Whitelists should be given to anyone who deserves it. If we decide now that we should grade people harsher on their play and make them do absurd amount of work just to try out playing a command role we will end up with the same couple veteran players in command roles every round. If a Head player is fucking up regularly then there are numerous ways to remove their whitelist.

Like I said on your reapplication thread, 1138, everyone deserves a chance.

[Guest]

I'm not asking for more strict guidelines on gaining an application.

I'm not asking for any change at all. I'm asking people be aware, that's all.

[jackfractal]

Five rounds is an absurd amount of work?

[Xelnagahunter]

I'm feeling like my application is kinda like this. I'm not entirely unknown to the server, but people probably don't know me well enough to want to place any comments on my apps. I've only had one positive comment and that was on my IPC app where it only partially matters. My head app has seen plenty of views but I can't even get someone to tell me if there's a reason why they WOULDN'T want to see my app succeed so I can try to make it better.

Knowing that it doesn't 100% matter is reassuring because it means my app still has a chance, but I'm disheartened by the fact that I can't get told that I have a good or poor app or that so and so thinks well or poorly of my RPing skills to a point that they inform me.

In time I'll see a verdict regardless, but like I've told people at my new job, "If no-one tells me I'm doing anything wrong, I can't learn to do it right."